Nonprofit-Performance-360-Special-Edition-Stanley

BErNy DOHrMANN

Growing Up with Legends

M y dad, Alan G. Dohrmann, was a legend and he mentored legends. Dad got his training in human potential development in the Navy during World War II. He retired as a commander and got involved with Dr. Edward Deming, training the major companies of the world after the war. When Deming put together the model to rebuild Japan, Dad collaborated with him. After the Korean War, Dad worked on his own with Samsung and other companies on organizing into better performance. He did that all his life. Dad also founded the human potential industry in the 1940s. He started working during the early years with Michael Murphy at Esalen, which was a pioneer, and with Clement Stone of Positive Mental Attitude. He developed a lot of the material for that, and then he became the course developer for a program called Mind Dynamics. He taught human potential classes that were open to the public. All of the thought leaders of that time attended, including John Gallagher, president of PepsiCo. My dad coached Walt Disney when the park was opening and did a lot of work for Disney. He worked with Martin Luther King, Jr., Earl Nightingale, Og Mandino, and Jack Kennedy; Kennedy sought out my father’s council about running for office. Zig Ziglar got his first job at my dad’s firm when he was 22 and started speaking there. Napoleon Hill worked for my dad’s company until he died. He was coached by Dad from

from these thought leaders. They certainly shaped me as a boy. If you heard Uncle Martin more than once, you’ll remember how he talked about cooperation. One of my big memories, from 1959, was of my father leaning over the table toward Uncle Martin and saying how this really stuck with him: “You can never remove darkness with more darkness. You have to bring in light and illumination to remove the darkness.” That became a big theme Martin used in his cooperation. My dad was extraordinary. He was of an era where we had conversation and formal dinners as a family rather than watch television. We all went on a hike on the Fourth of July every year, the kids and his grandkids. The last thing he wanted to do when he was ill at the end was one last hike. He had traditions, to be with his family as the head of it, guide his family, and give his principles and values. He always had time for us. He spent lots of time on our development. I would say we were his testimony. He wanted to show that if he could take brains that did not have bad software and add extraordinary software, then all nine of those children would demonstrate lives of extraordinary contribution, and we all have. We all love each other. We have no sibling rivalries. We all miss our parents. We have such an extraordinary family that we get confused when we see that others don’t. My father used to tell us all great stories. One of them was the difference between a

the 1950s. My first memory of Uncle Nappy was when I was in his lap at age four. He was great with children. He guided us. He was a very dignified, removed man. As with all great men with a public persona, if you are living with them, you see the other part. My dad was seen as a giant in human potential with what he could offload mentally in conversations but, to those who knew him well, his humor was his glue. Napoleon Hill was particularly funny, too, but in a dry, sarcastic, intellectual way. When I got to be older, I really appreciated his humor a lot more. Dad was always laughing and having such fun while doing very serious work in human potential. When we were raised with access to these thought leaders, the nine of us were children. When I was 15 and my dad took me to the march in Alabama with Martin Luther King, Jr., I became a man. My rite of passage was being smashed in the face, yelled and screamed at, and put in juvenile detention. I did not understand the civil rights movement, having played with black children in San Francisco. We did not have prejudice there. I did not understand it. When I got to the South, I understood it. My dad wanted me to understand it. Experiences are the lessons that grow you. Then I knew who this Uncle Martin who had come over to the house was. Even when we started the march, I thought it would be a great day, and that we would be in the news. From the standpoint of these lessons, as I got older, I had more guidance

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